


Gallifrey Records: The Marching Band Arrangement

by cereal, gallifreyburning



Series: Gallifrey Records [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-07
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s the first time the Doctor and Rose have done a charity gig in the States, but it’s an organization that Donna’s over the moon about – the Adiposian Orphans’ Association, an international group headquartered in San Francisco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gallifrey Records: The Marching Band Arrangement

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Crystal/[thedefenderoftheearth](http://thedefenderoftheearth.tumblr.com)'s birthday, because she’s an all-around awesome person and also the founder of the Gallifrey Records Tribute Symphony, so we decided to do a quick round of fic tennis to celebrate. (This is not new, it just apparently never got posted to AO3, or Teaspoon....or the masterlist, so it's just been quietly floating around out there in the tag!)

 

It’s the first time the Doctor and Rose have done a charity gig in the States, but it’s an organization that Donna’s over the moon about – the Adiposian Orphans’ Association, an international group headquartered in San Francisco. So when she brought it up to the Doctor, shoved a stack of brochures the size of a brick into his hands and started going on and on about Ms. Cofelia, the CEO, and all the good she was doing for orphans worldwide, the Doctor had told Donna to book the performance.

“You’re going to _love_ this!” Donna had said, hands out for emphasis, and she launched into a litany of the other stars attending the concert – Jack White, Bono, Julian Casablancas, and so on. As soon as Donna left the room, the Doctor promptly threw the brochures into the recycling bin, and went back to working on the song he was supposed to have written before he showed up in the studio that afternoon.

If it was something Donna wanted him to do, of course he’d do it, no questions asked.

Apparently the Doctor should’ve at least asked _one_ question, or glanced at those brochures.[[MORE]] Or maybe paid attention to the words Rose was saying the night before they landed in California – although it was hard, paying attention, what with much more interesting things to take note of, like the fact that she was practically naked and straddling his lap while she was talking. She was asking about which songs he’d chosen for the performance, and did he know how to play a tuba, and what sorts of formations he thought would be interesting, had he drawn any diagrams … well, he figured it was all some sort of foreplay – he can’t be expected to keep up with every one of Rose’s new euphemisms for sex. Certainly not when he’s tipping her over backward onto the bed and huskily bellowing the word _tuuuuuuuuuu-ba, tu-baaaaaaaaaaa_ against her chest until she’s giggling madly and shoving off his trousers.

But when he and Rose step off the plane in California, Donna meets them at the gate. And the more Donna talks, the more it dawns on the Doctor that this gig isn’t just supposed to be him and Rose strutting around onstage and putting on one of their usual performances.

“Rose, you’ll be working with Eisenhower High School. Doctor, they’ve got you down for someplace called Westfield High.”

“High school?” he echoes, his eyes going wide. They’re performing for an audience made entirely of teenagers? Well, this is going to be an invigorating afternoon.

“It’s just what they call secondary schools in the US,” Rose pipes in. She’s practically skipping along beside him, bursting with excitement. “I’m so glad we agreed to do this – this is going to be fantastic!”

Donna beams back at her. “I know!”

It’s like they’ve got some secret between them, some wonderful secret they haven’t shared with him. Except Donna _did_ share it, and the Doctor wasn’t paying attention, and if he admits that now he’s going to get a smack. Or shouted at. Or something worse.

The Doctor claps his hands and rubs them together enthusiastically; he can play this game. “Let’s get started!”

They arrive at Candlestick Park, and the parking lot is chock-full of large yellow buses. It’s bedlam, students in peculiar military-style uniforms milling about. Only when they get closer, driving right past a flock of them in tall hats with feathery red protrusions on the top, does the Doctor recognize them.

Obviously the performers at the concert are going to be backed up by full student bands. “Oh, brilliant!”

“Aren’t they, though!” Rose agrees.

They’re ushered into the belly of the stadium, long grey corridors teeming with more people. Donna shows the Doctor to a door, grasps him by the arm, and beams up at him.

“Have fun, rock boy!” she says, throwing open the door.

Inside, close to a hundred students are sitting with instruments. The minute they see him, they start cheering and clapping wildly; there are a few high-pitched shrieks of excitement from the girls, and even some of the boys.

Bewildered, the Doctor reaches behind himself for Rose’s hand.

“Good luck. May the best band director win,” she says, squeezing his fingers. Then she lets go. Donna practically shoves him inside the door and closes it behind him.

Right. On his own, then.

A girl in unform, obviously one of the eldest in the room, steps up to him and hands him a notebook. “Doctor, just let us know what song you’ve picked from the songbook – we’ve been rehearsing them all for weeks. We’re ready for anything you want to throw at us!”

He blinks at her, then flips open the notebook. It’s full of music, songs by the stars who’ve agreed to be at the charity event. “I’m directing you today?” he asks.

“Yes!”

“And this is some sort of competition.”

“We’re going head-to-head with all the other stars and their bands, but with you as our director, we’re a shoe-in!” Her words are practically a squeal; the girl’s composure is wearing off, and she’s about to start flailing in excitement. The Doctor’s seen it often enough to know the symptoms. “We’re ready for whatever marching pattern you’ve got prepared, too — we’re all yours!”

The Doctor snaps the binder closed and walks over to stand in front of the group, surveying the instruments – woodwinds, percussion, brass.

“Riiiiiiight. Music.” The Doctor leans against a table, tipping his head back as his mind races, trying to figure out what on earth he’s going to do. “Music. Music. Music. I hope you’re getting this all down.”

He needs to buy himself some time, needs to _think_ about this, the sort of thinking Rose has already probably been doing, if her enthusiasm was any indication. Because now that he gets it, that there's a competition involved, he wants to win.

Or, well, beat Rose. Because while there are plenty of circumstances where he's happy to let her cross the finish line ahead of him -- orgasms, for instance -- this seems, appropriately for the way these kids are dressed, like the sort of feather he'd like in his cap.

_Remember that time I marched a group of rowdy adolescents right into a first prize?_

Certainly she'll have to allow him to get a motorbike if he has that sort of control. Can't argue with logic like that, no way.

"All right," he finally says, looking at a few of the students. "What song are you best at?"

It seems like every single person in the room speaks up, and they're all saying something different.

"Whoa, whoa, _whoa_ ," the Doctor says. "Hope your marching is a bit more uniform than your answers. Get it -- _uniform_? Because you're all in uniform?"

The students look at him blankly. Oh, brilliant, bet they didn't give Bono a group this tough.

“Let me see that binder again,” he says. The girl from earlier hands it back, but the light in her eyes is dimming, he’s losing her; he’s going to lose the whole room if he isn’t careful.

“Okay, look, The Strokes, here,” he points at a page. "'You Only Live Once,’ did you learn that one?”

All of the kids nod, some looking more enthusiastic than others, and he zeroes right in on the chuffed ones, because he’s got an idea, and it’s really his only shot at this point.

“So if we all only live once, shouldn’t we all follow our hearts out there on the pitch? The field? The grass? What do you call it?” He tugs at his ear. "The _ground_. And what does your _heart_ want to do on the ground?”

The light in the girl’s eyes has definitely, 100 percent, absolutely gone out now, and she’s glaring at him.

“March in formation,” she says. “That’s what my heart wants to do.”

The Doctor arches his eyebrow at her in a way he hopes is authoritative, before turning deliberately to a boy with a large anarchy sticker plastered to the side of his trumpet case.

“You, mate, what do _you_ want to do out there?”

The boy shrugs.

“Exactly! Now let’s play this song through a couple times, we’ll go out in a line, and then you just -- _live_. Once. See? It’s a theme. I’ll make sure to convey it to the judges. Very avant-garde, do they do avant-garde in marching band? They do now.”

He’s babbling, has basically spent the last several minutes babbling, and he cuts himself off abruptly, indicating that they should begin playing the song.

The instruments start up and he takes a second to breathe, because it’s hot in this room, he’s completely unprepared, and there’s no way he’s going to beat Rose, or Bono, or anyone, not without the reanimated corpse of John Philip Sousa to help.

Oooh, zombies, is it too late to have them all march about like zombies?

They’ve gotten through the song a handful of times, half the room shooting daggers at him, the other half looking at him like they can’t quite believe he’s not giving them further instruction, when a staffer for the charity knocks on the door and announces the competition is going to begin.

It seems like an awfully short period to get ready in, even if he had come prepared, but he shrugs and rallies the troops anyway.

It's a complete spectacle.

Bono's school has pyrotechnic effects on the field, and frankly, if someone had told the Doctor there was the potential for fireworks, he would've paid attention ages ago.

The bloke from Blink 182 has had his lot exchange all their band hats -- caps? -- for mohawk wigs and they create several formations that are apparently edgy, if the gasps from the crowd are to be believed.

Julian Casablancas has selected one of the Doctor's own songs for his group, and the Doctor is pleased at the symmetry until they put on a performance that brings the audience to a standing ovation.

It continues like that, more and more impressive, until it's Rose turn. She's second-to-last right before the Doctor, and she waves and smiles at him in the holding area before her students take the field.

She's selected that Blink 182 song about falling in love with the girl at a rock show, which seems a little risque for a high school event, but he can't stop himself from grinning stupidly at her when she looks his way during the performance. He gestures back and forth between them, he'd certainly fallen in love with her at a rock show, and she winks at him.

Maybe they can revisit their adolescent days together later on. He can be the young, suave music teacher, and she can be the pretty, eager student. Wait, no, _she_ can be the teacher!

Oh,  _or_ he'll find them some bleachers, plenty of bleachers in this place, and they'll have a snog right underneath them, and he'll make a big show of getting his hand up her top, innocent fumbling and sweaty palms and then he'll take her back to the hotel and show her just what he's learned since he was a teenag--

"Doctor!"

The girl from earlier is glaring at him again, and the crowd is roaring around him, cheering louder for Rose's kids than they have for any group yet.

"We're on," the girl tells him. "And I am holding you personally responsible for what's about to happen."

He nods, more than a little frightened at the Jackie Tyler turn this girl has taken, and walks his students out of their seats and to the field.

It is -- without any exaggeration -- an unmitigated disaster. Kids bumps into each other, kids fall over, someone throws their hat into the stands, the trumpet section literally sits down.

The Doctor finds himself in the middle of the field halfway through the song, escorted personally by that angry young lady, and suddenly he's spinning around in circles with a group of girls trying to play their clarinets and giggle at the same time.

When they're finished, there's an awkward silence, followed by scattered applause.

Bono's fireworks spectacular takes first and Rose laughs the entire car ride to the hotel, which is uncomfortably reminiscent of girls when the Doctor was a teenager, too.

Fortunately, by the time they're in the lobby bar, things have taken a turn for the better.

"Highest ratings they've ever had!" Donna crows. "ESPN wants to air the clip tonight!  _ESPN_ , with marching bands! Can you believe it?"

The Doctor can't believe it, and not just because he doesn't know what ESPN is, but he's pleased that Donna's decided not to give him a slap, and orders a round for the entire bar.

An hour later, school buses fill the hotel's valet and he orders another round, non-alcoholic this time, as his students troop in and they watch the highlights on the televisions in the lobby.

(An hour after _that_ , back in their room, he's convinced Rose to be the teacher, and he gets himself a slap after all.)


End file.
